Thieves Till We Die Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘I’m sorry you’re a pussy.’
    Jonah decided to leave it there.
    The lift whooshed them up to, where else, the penthouse. The doors opened on to a large air-conditioned room, done out in black suede and calico. The sudden dip in temperature brought Jonah’s skin out in gooseflesh.
    Who was he kidding? He got shivers every time he was summoned to the presence of Nathaniel Coldhardt.
    The boss man was maybe in his early sixties. He sat in the dead centre of the room in a high-backed chair, watching as they filed in to face him, deathly pale in a dark, tailored suit. A mane of white hair framed the craggy features, lined more with experience than the years. And age had done nothing to diminish the rogue’s sparkle in his piercing blue eyes.
    Coldhardt sat and watched them, as if daring them to fill the chilly silence. He could easily be taken for a big businessman, Jonah decided, a mover and shaker. You might put his arrogant half-smile down to decades of deal clinching, or assume his easy confidence and charm was simply the badge of someone at the top of his game.
    And in a way, you’d be right.
    Coldhardt was a crook. A master-planner. Gettingtoo old to pull off heists himself, he’d recruited kids to act for him, all from the wrong side of the tracks and all experts in the fields he needed. One by one Coldhardt’s ageing hands had scooped them out from their dead-end situations and into a life their peers could only dream about: luxurious homes, the coolest creature comforts, fast cars, bikes, yachts, even a plane, for God’s sake … Pools, gyms, amusement arcades, they had them all in half a dozen homes all around the world.
    The only thing they didn’t have was the option to turn him down. Whatever they were told to do, they did, trading their lives and skills for 10 per cent of Coldhardt’s net profits. And with the kind of capers the boss man set up, those profits could easily roll into millions.
    â€˜I understand from Tye you encountered trouble.’ The Irish lilt in Coldhardt’s deep voice held a gently mocking edge.
    â€˜We encountered guards armed with automatic weapons,’ said Con coolly.
    â€˜AK74s by the looks of it,’ Motti added. ‘That’s Russian issue, right?’
    â€˜Kabacra’s an arms dealer who operates all over the world,’ said Coldhardt, rising to his full imposing height of well over six feet. ‘He’ll locate, acquire and sell on anything to anyone, from a crate of assault rifles to weapons-grade plutonium.’
    Patch piped up, ‘But not made at
that
nuclear power plant, right?’
    Coldhardt shook his head. ‘He bought the Guatemalan complex when it was decommissionedfifteen years ago, stripped it bare and made it into a strongroom to hold his personal collection of weapons. Weapons that are allegedly
not
for sale at any price.’
    â€˜Well, Cortes’s sword ain’t there, man,’ said Motti sourly. ‘May have been once, but not now.’
    Coldhardt stared hard at him. ‘You’re certain?’
    â€˜You told me what to look for. There was a whole lot of metal in that containment chamber, but not the blade you want.’
    â€˜The information came from a most reliable source.’ Coldhardt took a thoughtful sip of his drink. ‘An unknown collector has recently made it known that he – or she – is willing to pay an incredible sum for Cortes’s sword, and I had reason to believe it might be found in Kabacra’s collection.’
    â€˜Which is why you decided to rip him off before he could flog it to them,’ Jonah realised.
    â€˜There was this space on the wall,’ said Patch cautiously. ‘The mounting screws were there, but … Well, maybe that was where this Cortes geezer’s sword used to hang, and Kabacra’s already got rid.’
    Jonah tapped his holdall with his foot. ‘We brought most of his collection back